A NEW president who vowed to crush terrorism doesn’t seem to have made much difference to Nigeria’s fortunes, for on Friday, the militant group Boko Haram once again demonstrated its chilling power to spread death and destruction in the land. By a rough estimate it has murdered some 200 people during the last few days, targeting among other places a mosque where a 15-year-old girl blew herself up to kill and maim the faithful at afternoon prayers. That the government is helpless became evident when 50 terrorists on motorcycles made the Mussa village a target for the fourth time, shooting innocent people, burning houses and dragging women from their homes to kill them. Evidently, Boko Haram has stepped up its killing spree, slaughtering more than 450 people since May when President Muhammadu Buhari took over. The overall casualty toll since Boko Haram began its murderous campaign has now reached 15,000, and the Nigerian government seems unable to respond forcefully to the militant group’s reprehensible tactics.

The trauma in Nigeria must be seen in the global context, for the last week of June saw an extraordinary rise in acts of terror across the Middle East, Africa and Europe, following incitement to violence by the so-called Islamic State, which asked its supporters to increase attacks in this month of fasting. In Tunisia, a gunman spewed death on a beach, killing 37 tourists; in Kuwait a Saudi suicide bomber caused havoc in a Shia mosque leaving almost 30 people dead, and in the Somali village of Lego, Shabab militants raided an African Union base, massacring 50 people and beheading many. Three agonising facts hit us with force: one, the terrorists are in a position to strike whenever and wherever they wish; two, the international community — the Muslim world especially — has failed to degrade much less crush the monster that is international terrorism; three, the silent majority in the Muslim world seems cowed by a microscopic minority of bloodthirsty extremists, who insist on imposing their concept of Islam through brute terror. The challenge, thus, is not merely the state’s military response; the greater task involves countering the extremists through other means. In Kuwait, we see an example that deserves to be emulated by the entire Muslim world, for last Friday saw Shias and Sunnis praying together. The task before Muslim intellectuals is to work for a tolerant, pluralistic polity that accepts and embraces all human beings irrespective of their beliefs.

Published in Dawn, July 5th, 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play